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2014-02-20 - Cutscene: The Death of a Dream - The Letter
Cap's funeral. Clint never thought he'd see it. I mean this was Captain America, how does Cap die? "How does Cap die before me?" Clint wonders aloud. "Woof?" barks Lucky in response. They're sitting in the living room of the Aerie, Clint dressed in his black suit, tie loosened, but hey he still had his collar stays in, so he wasn't a total mess. Stupid collar stays, stupid Kate for telling him about them. He takes a long pull of his beer while looking at the TV screen. It was tuned to the broadcast of the funeral. It was on every network. He should have gone, he told people he was going to go, they'd probably waited for him and gave up, he could see them in the crowd now. It was easier to be this Clint, the irresponsible one, sitting alone with his dog, and watching it all on TV rather than being there and /feeling/. Heck, they just showed JJJ bawling like a baby. No thanks. He sips his beer again setting it down, then picking up the tattered and worn comic book on the coffee table. CAPTAIN AMERICA the title proclaimed in red, white and blue letters, the cover showing Cap and Bucky punching Nazis. Smiling sadly, he thumbs through the pages, they weren't really old, heck, the actual issue had come out in the 90's when Clint was a kid. He’d had Kinetic dig up the issue, back when the kid was with the Avengers while working in a comic shop. The kid could find anything if it was a comic and Clint had asked him to find this one. He skipped the story as he thumbed through the pages, the Nazi underground-drilling-sub-thing, the evil German general with the monocle, all to get to the part he looked at a million times before: the letters. His eyes shoot down below the ad for the sea monkeys (don't get him started on the futzing sea monkeys) to one letter in particular. It read: Dear Cap Mail, I'm bad at these things and you probably won't print it, but I just wanted to say, no other superhero is better than Cap. I read his stuff and I want to be better, you know, not another boys home kid. Seriously, if history class had these books we'd probably show up to class more. Going now, you only print the short ones, but thanks. - Clint B, age 9, Iowa. Clint tears up a little as he reads the words and the bold text below it. It was mostly standard response stuff, thanks Clint yadda, yadda, yadda, though a bit stuck with him, Cap would want you to go to class it had said. Clint remembered that moment, the feeling like he, Clint Barton, nine-year-old delinquent and budding thief had been worthy of some of Cap's time. Even if he knew it was just some editor in New York doing the writing. It had been an important moment, one he gloated to his brother Barney about until Barney punched him. It had made him feel special and closer to Cap, long before he even met him, heck, he even almost went to class. Almost.